I've never done one of these reviews before, but I'm going to try my best. Bear with me, okay?
So, this past Friday after work, I went straight to Umeda Sky Building and caught a late bus to Nagoya. The tour bus was leaving at 7am Saturday, and trying to get to Nagoya by 7am would be a horrible nightmare of just barely making it, so I stayed overnight in an Internet cafe in Nagoya.
7am, we all met the tour company and boarded the buses. The trip got underway, and they passed out a LOT of paperwork - things like the schedule, your hotel room info, etc. Then they folded down the screen for the "TV" and told us Ai and Gaki had recorded a message. It really wasn't much, but it was pretty funny. They said they were really excited about the bus tour - and that this was the first in a series of 'Visual Radio' shows. They decided they needed to name it. It seems that when they were first given the kanji for where they were going, Ai-chan read it wrong? We went to Hakuba - 白馬 in kanji. I couldn't catch perfectly what Ai-chan apparently thought it was, but it was either しもま, しろま or しろうま (shimoma, shiroma, shirouma). So they decided to make it "愛／ガキのしろうまじゃないよはくばだよ番組" (Basically "Ai and Gaki's 'It's not shirouma, it's Hakuba!' program") They had the best time trying to remember how to say it all the first couple of times. xD
They pretty much ran down the schedule and talked about how they wanted to have a lot of fun with everyone. They also showed off some omiyage they were going to give away to people on this "episode"... I think. Then the staff person on our bus (I don't remember her actual name - she told us, but the bus ended up nicknaming her Aki-chan. She was REALLY freaking cute, and actually is an Ai/Gaki fan. So we loved her.
The guys actually asked her at one point if she was an idol herself and she laughed and thanked them for the compliment.) put in Single Daizenshou, and it was like a concert the whole 2 hours to the first rest stop.
Rest stop complete, back on the bus, second "radio show"!
They showed off some of the tour goods on this one, and I think they had a trivia question about famous people from Nagano (niether of them got the first answer right, Gaki got the second one, winning her some apple candy). They also drew a seat of the bus out and the person in that seat won apple candy, too. The next rest stop was about another two hours out. More concert-like fun. The second rest stop was actually inside Nagano, and I couldn't help it - I had to get one of the omiyage that Gaki and Ai were going to give away (As in, buy the same thing myself. xD ). I mean... it's SO CUTE! See?
Two apples.... that kiss!
Anyway, after the second rest stop, I believe there was one more radio show and more concerting (I think we were on to Ai-chan's solo DVD of... I forget which concert. By that time I was sorta tired, and zoning out a lot. ). These DVDs, by the way, were all brought by the wota on the bus.
We arrived at the hotel and were whisked inside for the three shot photo time. There was a sign in the lobby which I'm sure you've seen on Ai and Gaki's blogs by now. I don't have any pictures from my good camera of it anyway. xD If you want the picture I took with my phone, I can work on uploading that. ^_^;
I decided on a heart pose for my three shot, but really... you basically don't even talk to Ai and Gaki during this. You tell the staff which pose, they tell Ai and Gaki. I mean, there are between 500 and 600 people they need to photograph - so it goes pretty darn fast. I actually hardly remember it, except that the staff seemed pretty amused by having a foreigner there. The camera guy said, "Hai, Chi-zu" Japanese style, and one of the staff members off to the side said, "Smile please!" in English. After the shot was taken he chimed in again with "Cute! Cute!" and a huge thumbs up and grin. I really hardly remember seeing the girls, it went so fast!
My picture turned out pretty good. I hate how I look in photographs, but all things considered... I like it. Considering I showed
shirenu, I might as well leave it here too:
After the 3 shot we pulled our seats for both the concert and the 2nd day event by lottery draw (neither of mine were all that good.
), they whisked us away (I think it was like... an hour or so on the bus again?) to the 1998 Olympic Ski Jump stadium.
Not kidding folks, this was pretty cool. They passed out a scavenger hunt we were supposed to complete - anyone who got everything right had a chance to win a prize from Ai and Gaki. Some of the Japanese I couldn't really read, but I did my best and ended up getting all the answers. But really, just being there was pretty freaking awesome. They had us going up the ski lift. There were no belts.
But the views were amazing. Highlight shots (Sorry, I LOVE taking pictures, and this was BEAUTIFUL!):
Our welcome board. xD
Up the hill!
Let's go up the ski lift!
Still going up! (The whole trip takes about 4 minutes)
Hey, that's pretty.
From the top observatory!
Okay, I am totally not skiing this.
Nope, not a chance in hell. (Even if I actually could ski.)
Still pretty, though!
Going down! (I did mention, there's absolutely no strap or belt of any kind holding you into the seat, right?)
Back to the bus! Back to the hotel, for check-in! We stayed here:
I shared my room with 4 Japanese girls, two of whom were on my bus. They were all pretty nice, and were pretty fascinated to have a foreigner there. One of the girls from another bus was 18 years old, and if I understood right... was bummed that she had just missed being able to try out for 9th and 10th gen (because she's 18). It seems as if she might be thinking of going for AKB since she can't. I have to say, she could probably do it. She could dance pretty well (I found out later) and she was really quite cute.
Dinner was about an hour later, and it was sort of insane. 500+ people tossed into a cafeteria to fend for themselves. Lines were long, but it worked out in the end. The view from the dinner table was amazing -
But we couldn't enjoy it for too long. After all, we had to get some food because next was....
The live event! I know the set list has gone up already in various places, and I don't have those handy so I'm not going to rehash it here. It was really high energy, and definitely had a far more adult/sexy appeal to it than a normal concert. It was very much Ai/Gaki but it ... I dunno, I wasn't as OMG HOORAY about it as I usually am about concerts and such.
I wasn't the only one either, the girls I shared my room with had mostly the same opinion (I found out, at the end of the night).
But after the event, we went back to the buses, and they brought us back to the hotel. The guides led us to an area of the parking lot away from the hotel. There was a huge wooden structure up and lines around it in a circle. It was explained that Ai and Gaki were coming here too.
They didn't know we were there, waiting. They were going to be brought to the stage, and we could surprise them. They were going to light the wooden structure for a gigantic bonfire, and we would all sing Bravo!.
Here's the before picture - but I only had my iPhone, so the picture is not that great.
You can sort of make out part of the wood pile, and the hotel off in the background.
They asked us to be quiet and turn off our glowsticks (or hide them) - because the girls were going to be able to hear us from the bus otherwise. It went, I kid you not, pretty much dead silent. Everyone wanted this to go well.
It took what seemed like FOREVER to get Ai and Gaki off the bus. It seems that (we found out the next day) the staff was telling them to hurry up, and they were saying they weren't ready yet, hang on.
(They were told they were doing something for the event DVD.) But it had started to lightly rain and the staff wanted this all to go well, I think.
FINALLY the girls came off the bus. I kid you not, they were FREAKING OUT in the blindfolds. There were like 4 staff around them to make sure they didn't fall, but their voices rang out loud and clear - they kept saying they were scared, and it's not a ghost right? OMG it better not be a ghost.
LOL! They had a rough time stepping up on the stage blindfolded, but they got them up there. The staff pulled off the blindfolds and the crowd went NUTS.
Gaki and Ai both started bawling. Ai actually fell to her knees.
It actually took a while for either of them to be able to talk. People were shouting things like "Ganbare!" and "Obake janai yo!" (Not a ghost!) I don't know if they really didn't know about it or not - but if this was all an act, these two need to be doing a LOT more dramas. The staff finally explained that this was the fans' surprise for Gaki and Ai and they cried even MORE. Gaki and Ai lit the fire - and the staff had one more surprise... for ALL of us. They asked us to look at the sky over the hotel.... and they did a small fireworks show.
Ai and Gaki: more tears. Dear god, these two were SO CUTE.
Everyone sang Bravo! and Ai and Gaki were pretty awed. They started moving around the circle (with staff all around them, both lighting the ground so they didn't trip and keeping back anyone that got too overexcited.) They were waving at people and honestly, Ai-chan earned a lot of points in my mind this trip because she seems to REALLY love seeing the fans. She was high fiving/touching as many people as possible while she walked - Gaki seems more reserved and doesn't do it as much. They made them talk and it was mostly astonishment at how the hell were you guys that quiet?! Also "OMG, you waited in the RAIN for us?!"
(By now the rain was pretty damn steady but who the hell was leaving this?!)
They had us sing Aruiteru, too. Ai and Gaki walked again - and this is slower, so Ai was touching WAY more people. Gaki... either finally decided to touch hands, or got asked to - because she started to as well. (By the way.... sitting in the VERY front of my area - Ai high fived me twice, and Gaki did the one time she was doing it. Making me a VERY happy girl.)
They got on the bus and people rushed to wave goodbye to it, even though it was raining a lot harder by now. Ai and Gaki opened the windows to lean out and say goodbye to us.
This is the fire, still going (in the rain) after Ai and Gaki left and I could take out my phone again. It was pretty warm, so even if the rain was cold... we really weren't.
I walked back to the hotel and about 2 minutes from the door, it started to absolutely DOWNPOUR. So I was completely soaked by the time I got back to my room. But who the HELL cared?
My roommates stayed up for a while singing - and I stayed up with them for a while, but not long. Soonish I crawled in bed and pretty much passed out, despite that they were laughing and talking. They woke me up at one point and apologized profusely, but I was like "meh, no worries" and passed back out. (I hadn't slept well at the net cafe)
....honestly, I am sort of tired now. If no one minds, I will come back in a day or so to give you the second day. If you want it?
(My apologies for the pic-heavy post. ;.; But the Olympic Stadium was cool!)
Topic: The TakaGaki Thread (Read 156042 times)